Thursday, August 18, 2005

Supersized Bullshit

...Pointing out that (gasp!) only eating the salads is healthier wasn't really the point- it was the fact that McDonald's still sells meals that can exceed 2,500 calories. Spurlock wasn't denying that you can lose weight- he was highlighting that it's incredibly difficult because their products are loaded with fat and chemicals that are sold with a marketing gimmick devoted to making you eat as much as possible.

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Well, another day, another "counter-Spurlock" film being hyped by the right. The Freeper crowd is ecstatic about the latest person to prove you can lose weight eating at McDonald's, in some kind of moral victory over Morgan Spurlock's film Supersize Me.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Inspired by the documentary "Super Size Me," Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try. The construction worker and mother of two ate only at McDonald's for 90 days — and dropped 37 pounds in the process.

It was a vastly different outcome than what happened in the documentary to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who put on 30 pounds and saw his health deteriorate after 5,000 calories a day of nothing but McDonald's food.

Spurlock, who turned his surprise-hit movie into a TV show on the FX network, isn't talking about Morgan or the many other McDieters who have criticized his film and found success losing weight by eating healthy foods off the McDonald's menu, said his agent, David Magdael.

One person went so far as to make her own independent film about dieting at McDonald's. "Me and Mickey D" follows Soso Whaley, of Kensington, N.H., as she spends three 30-day periods on the diet. She dropped from 175 to 139 pounds, eating 2,000 calories-a-day at McDonald's.

"I had to think about what I was eating," Whaley said. "I couldn't just walk in there and say 'I'll take a cinnamon bun and a Diet Coke.' ... I know a lot of people are really turned off by the whole thought of monitoring what they are eating, but that's part of the problem."

Umm... sorry to interrupt the article here, but a slight interjection- duh.

Once the right decided that Spurlock was a "liberal" target, they then went ahead and created a strawman out of his movie by claiming that he merely was saying that McDonald's food is unhealthy. Now, it is, and I willingly eat it, as do a lot of people. But the goddamn point of Supersize me was to emphasize the exact same point these anti-Spurlock morons think they're "countering" him with- that you need to make healthy decisions.

Can you lose weight eating nothing but McDonalds? Of course you can. You can lose weight eating nothing but Cool-Whip as long as you don't exceed the daily calorie intake your body burns. One of the "rules" of Spurlock's experiment, however, was that he had to eat every item on the McDonald's menu as well as agree to have his order "supersized" (given the largest size drink and french fries) anytime McDonald's offered- something that sort of offsets the average calorie load of little miss "wow, I lose weight eating nothing but salads! So there!" Pointing out that (gasp!) only eating the salads is healthier wasn't really the point- it was the fact that McDonald's still sells meals that can exceed 2,500 calories. Spurlock wasn't denying that you can lose weight- he was highlighting that it's incredibly difficult because their products are loaded with fat and chemicals that are sold with a marketing gimmick devoted to making you eat as much as possible.

Finally, you turn to the McDonald's flacky highlighting all the "healthy choices" McDonald's has on its menu. Admittedly, they actually have been looking into that- the article even mentions their healthy eating plans from their website, their new salads, fruit selections, leaner chicken, and so forth. What McDonald's tends to leave out of this oral press release is that much of this, for some straaaaange reason, all happened after Supersize Me came out.

Spurlock's new show, 30 Days, continues the straw man stupidity from the right in their attempt to automatically hate it. His first episode, about living on the minimum wage, was met with hateful and uncaring responses from the right about how "it's possible to live on the minimum wage." Once again, no shit. That's not the point- the point of the show is to reflect that while tons of people live like this- be it on the minimum wage, binge drinking, being Muslim-American, it's difficult and the efforts people make to hide that conflict should be acknowledged.

Before Supersize Me and the lawsuits, McDonald's response to unhealthy eating wasn't making efforts to make healthier products- it was to try and hide the numbers. This is what every corporation or status quo, be it gun makers, tobacco companies, or, generally, rich white men, try to do on a daily basis. Each of these wannabe fillmakers, eager to cash in on Spurlock's success by acting willfully ignorant about his message, are arguing the equivalent of saying that cigarettes are perfectly safe because they haven't gotten cancer yet. Unfortunately, that's not the point.

Inspired by the documentary "Super Size Me," Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try. The construction worker and mother of two ate only at McDonald's for 90 days — and dropped 37 pounds in the process.

It was a vastly different outcome than what happened in the documentary to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who put on 30 pounds and saw his health deteriorate after 5,000 calories a day of nothing but McDonald's food.

Morgan, from Raleigh, thought the documentary had unfairly targeted the world's largest restaurant company, implying that the obese were victims of a careless corporate giant. People are responsible for what they eat, she said, not restaurants. The problem with a McDonald's-only diet isn't what's on the menu, but the choices made from it, she said.

"I thought it's two birds with one stone — to lose weight and to prove a point for the little fat people," Morgan said. "Just because they accidentally put an apple pie in my bag instead of my apple dippers doesn't mean I'm going to say, 'Oh, I can eat the apple pie.'"

Spurlock, who turned his surprise-hit movie into a TV show on the FX network, isn't talking about Morgan or the many other McDieters who have criticized his film and found success losing weight by eating healthy foods off the McDonald's menu, said his publicist, David Magdael.

One person went so far as to make her own independent film about dieting at McDonald's. "Me and Mickey D" follows Soso Whaley, of Kensington, N.H., as she spends three 30-day periods on the diet. She dropped from 175 to 139 pounds, eating 2,000 calories-a-day at McDonald's.

"I had to think about what I was eating," Whaley said. "I couldn't just walk in there and say 'I'll take a cinnamon bun and a Diet Coke.' ... I know a lot of people are really turned off by the whole thought of monitoring what they are eating, but that's part of the problem."

As might be expected, McDonald's also objected to the impressions left by Spurlock's film. Walt Riker, the company's vice president of corporate communications, said Oak Brook, Ill.-based company is pleased — but not surprised — that some customers have lost weight eating only at the fast-food giant.

Spurlock's film "really spurred a backlash based on common sense," Riker said.

Morgan used nutritional information downloaded from McDonald's Web site to create meal plans of no more than 1,400 calories a day. She only ate french fries twice, usually choosing burgers and salads. Those choices are a stark contrast with those made by Spurlock, who ate every menu item at least once.

At the end of the 90 days, she had dropped from 227 to 190 pounds.

"It feels great," she said. "Because, the truth of the matter is that beauty is power, and if you're fat, or your overweight, then people don't really take you seriously."

Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, agreed that a low-calorie, McDonald's-only diet can help people lose weight but said it may not offer enough long-term variety. Whatever an individual does to lose weight, they need to do for the rest of their life, she said.

Morgan said she hasn't decided if she will stick with the McDonald's-only plan to reach her goal of 150 pounds. But she does have one complaint about McDonald's.

"If I could suggest anything to McDonald's, I would suggest the McMargarita," Morgan said. "Dine-in only, of course."